The holiday season always seems to come up quickly, and 2021 is no different, even with the new challenges the pandemic presents. If you’ve already planned your marketing efforts on holidays like Black Friday, Cyber Monday, Thanksgiving, and Christmas, you’re on the right track to make the most of the season. If you haven’t started planning ahead don’t worry, our holiday checklist has you covered! 

But did you know that there are many lesser celebrated holidays worth promoting? Everyone could use a little extra cheer beyond the most popular holidays, and these relatively unknown holidays make for additional opportunities to draw in new traffic to your site, increase engagement on social media, and sell more tours and activities. Explore the less commonly known holidays in this guide and see how you can take advantage of them to boost your bookings and engagement.

*Please note this guide covers US holidays.

Get Playful With UGC For Movember 

Movember – or No-Shave November – is a movement that takes place during November, where men grow out their mustaches and facial hair for the entire month to raise awareness for men’s health issues. As you can imagine, this results in some pretty impressive facial hairstyles and unruly mustaches, as well as lots of activity and chatter on social media surrounding the event.

Many businesses participate in Movember by hosting contests among their employees to see who can grow the best facial hair. If your male tour guides are up for the challenge, be sure to document their progress on social media and use hashtags like #movember and #noshavenovember.

Get your audience to participate in the fun by asking them to send you their best No-Shave November photos and then share them on your social pages. This is a marketing tactic known as user-generated content (UGC) and it’s a fun and playful way to boost engagement and get people to interact with your business on social media.

Participate In Small Business Saturday

Do you run a small business? There’s an entire day dedicated to celebrating businesses like yours at the end of November. Small Business Saturday falls on November 27, 2021 and is a fantastic opportunity to attract new customers or to re-engage with previous customers to encourage them to enjoy a tour activity with you again.

Pro tip: To gain more visibility and to officially participate in Small Business Saturday head over to the official American Express website and register your business so that potential customers can easily find you. Users can browse small businesses in their area through the American Express site.

Create special promotions to mark the occasion and highlight them on social media, in email campaigns, and on your website. Another great promotion idea is to partner with other local small businesses to remind customers of the importance of shopping small. Small Business Saturday is all about building community, so creating an experience or promotion in partnership with another business can go a long way since you’ll both market each other’s activities and support each other.

Honor Military Families

You’re probably familiar with Veterans Day, but did you know that the whole month of November is Military Family Month? Honor veterans and military families and bring in new business by offering special discounts and events.

Share social posts about what this month of celebration means to your business and post any promotions/discounts on your website and/or on signage at your location.

Support Giving Tuesday

Giving Tuesday is a global generosity movement that takes place every December and encourages people to do good, whether that’s in the form of volunteer work, donations, or simply making someone smile. Many businesses get in on the positivity by donating to local charities or hosting volunteer events.

You can participate by donating a portion of proceeds from tour/activity sales to a charity of your choosing. Make sure to promote Giving Tuesday leading up to the day and let customers know that any booking made on the day will have a great impact and support an important cause. Another idea is to incorporate volunteer work into a regularly scheduled tour or activity. For example, if you offer hiking tours, perhaps you could add an hour at the end of the tour to sponsor a park cleanup. 

Other Holiday Marketing Ideas

These are just some of the less common holidays to celebrate in November in December. There are so many holidays year-round, many of which may align with your business type. For example, there are:

• Get to Know Your Customers Day in January
• Tourism Day in May
• Boating Day in July
• National Cooking Day in September
• Take a Hike Day in November

If you want to embark on more holiday marketing campaigns throughout the year, a quick Google search will help you to find more obscure or industry-specific holidays that can be really fun to celebrate!

We hope this guide has made you even more excited for the upcoming holiday season! Remember, with hundreds of holidays to choose from year-round, there’s always something to celebrate. Now it’s time to market your holiday promotions! Check out the next Compass guide to learn three easy ways to boost holiday sales in 2020 as well as other holiday marketing tips and tricks.